


Mirror, Mirror

by Brachylagus_fandom



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst and Feels, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-23
Updated: 2016-06-23
Packaged: 2018-07-12 11:14:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7100836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brachylagus_fandom/pseuds/Brachylagus_fandom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She is Lapis Lazuli, the girl in the mirror.<br/>She is Lapis Lazuli, the mirror in the girl.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Girl in the Mirror

**Author's Note:**

  * For [raininshadows](https://archiveofourown.org/users/raininshadows/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lapis Lazuli's journey from Homeworld to being a Crystal gem.

The first time you reform, you wake up trapped. There is a glass wall between you and the angry face of Jasper, and you can't even run away or beg for mercy. You can't speak to explain that you are little Lapis Lazuli, the one that she had left to die for her own enjoyment. You are unsure whether the fact that you are mute and alone is deliberate. Knowing Jasper, it probably is.

After a while, they lose. It almost gives you relief; they will take you home with them, and someone will eventually have the bright idea to pull you out, and it will all be better. The twisted joy on Jasper's face sends shivers down your spine as she very deliberately drops you on the ground, reflective surface down, and steps on your gem.

The crack isn't big enough to kill you, but it is enough to smash all your hopes for the future. There was a Pearl, back on Homeworld, who liked to help you practice; you will never see her again. Well, you haven't seen her in a while; she was stationed to Earth and eventually lost contact, probably because she was smashed by Rose. Still, there was a chance you would've reunited, since she was assigned to planetary reformation like you were.

You are left in the darkness of the Galaxy Warp for what feels like forever, half-awake and thinking about Pearl and Jasper and everyone else that you have lost. Many of them died in the Rebellion, and the rest have probably moved on by now. Many thousands of years later, you are picked up again. The gem who found you is a Pearl, thin and tall and looking exactly like your Pearl. You feel your heart leap with joy until you glimpse Garnet in the background. This is Rose Quartz's Pearl. You've been captured by the enemy. Of course.

Oddly enough, the years with the Crystal Gems are the calmest you can remember. They think you're broken, so they don't try to free you, but they don't try to destroy you either. Sometimes, Pearl (not your Pearl, Rose's right-hand gem) will talk about taking you to a fountain, but they never do. You are largely forgotten, but that is nothing new at this point.

It is seven long years as the Crystal Gem's tool before you are finally freed. Even better, the one who frees you is Rose's son; the irony of being saved, freed, and healed by your enemies makes your sides ache. He's even so kind as to repair your gem and let you go off to Homeworld without a fuss. Steven's a nice boy, really; it's such a shame that he won't go with you.

You return to Homeworld with almost no recognition; your friends are all gone and you have been missing for thousands of years. Almost immediately, you are put with the irritatingly still alive Jasper and the overgrown toddler known as Peridot to plan an assault on Earth.

That year is somewhat hazy: the Gems try to save Earth but are captured, Steven tries to save _you_ as if you are saveable, the ship is destroyed, you fuse with Jasper to end this, and you manage to see, just as you sink beneath the ocean's waves, the Gems crying. It's odd to see them cry, considering that they tried to kill you. No one has ever cared enough for you to feel your loss that strongly besides Pearl and maybe Steven.

The bottom of the ocean is hell in every meaning of the word. Every second stretches on like it is a year as you struggle to keep Malachite under your control. By the time the whole thing is over, you are exhausted and injured and far too gone to hear what Pearl whispers in your ear as you finally sleep.

When you finally wake up after days of drifting, Pearl is still there. She's got your hand in hers and is smiling at you. "Lapis," she breathes, barely daring to whisper in case someone else will hear. "My Lapis Lazuli."

"Your Lapis," you agree, suddenly realizing just which Pearl you've been fighting against. "Pearl? What happened to you?"

"I got found. You?"

"I got lost." You stay on the barn floor like that for a while, thinking about the not so good old days and looking over the past several years through the lens of her real identity.

"Why did you do that?" Pearl's question is sudden but not entirely unexpected.

"Do what?" you ask in reply, knowing that it will do nothing to dissuade her.

"Fuse with Jasper. You could have died!" You almost laugh at Pearl's scandalized tone; you know full well what she did during the war. Still, it's only fair that she's worried about you; your recent behavior hasn't been pointing towards you being a very stable individual, after all. You don't know what she wants to hear, but there's only one answer you can think of; it'll have to do.

"Some things are worth dying for."


	2. The Mirror in the Girl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lapis Lazuli is taken out of the mirror early, and is in a very different state.

She scares them more than Pearl would like to admit.

Lapis Lazuli, or the gem Sapphire is positive  _ was _ Lapis Lazuli, tucks her knees to her chest. It's not raining anymore, and the lack of water in her immediate vicinity is less than reassuring to her. She's been sitting in the same spot for the past three weeks, still and silent and somewhat more than unnerving.

Her gem is cracked, which is the first sign that something went wrong in the mirror. Her dress is tattered, which is an indication that her private hell started  _ before _ she was trapped. The facts that her eyes are reflective, that there are dark blue bruises along her arms and back, and that she only repeats what they've told her only add to the total still ticking in Pearl's head of what Homeworld has to pay for.

Sometimes, Pearl will sit with her and talk about meaningless things. Sometimes when she does this, Lapis will uncurl from the ball she generally is in and relax into her side. Sometimes, she will babble meaninglessly in perfect time to the rain outside. Pearl lets her. Once, when it was raining so hard that Beach City was under flood watch, she even talked a little. That had been an exciting day until they discovered that the change didn't last.

Even after Steven manages to mend her gem, Lapis doesn't say much. She'll fight with them occasionally, sure, but almost all of what little she says is repeated from Pearl's talks or what she heard in the mirror. The only time she'll say anything original is when she sinks under the ocean waves or it's raining so heavily outside that traveling anywhere would be insanity.

"Lapis," Pearl sighs after one very long day involving at least two panic attacks (one hers, one Lapis') and Steven nearly drowning. "What did they do to you?" Lapis turns over and gives her the blank stare she has grown far too used to over the years. 

"You don't want to know," Lapis replies so softly Pearl can barely hear her.

"How did this happen?" Lapis shudders.

"I don't want to talk about it." She never does, but they sit together on the ocean floor for hours, watching the fish swim and ignoring the rocks turned silvery by the moonlight. Eventually, Lapis sneaks as close to Pearl's side as she dares and falls asleep. Pearl lets her.

If Lapis talks in her sleep about the horrors she's faced, Pearl doesn't tell anyone. And if Pearl admits her problems to Lapis, she certainly doesn't talk about it. The silence of the mirror is a key part of the gem who came out of it, and for all that the girl is out of the mirror, the mirror is still in the girl.


End file.
